


History

by Not_You



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 17:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a kinkmeme prompt, 5 other Marvel characters Phil Coulson dated +1 he ended up with.  The prompt was for heroes, I fucked up and gave him one villain 'cause it was funny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History

1\. "You know I'll always care for you." The bar is empty, the air flat and warm. It's killing hot outside, noon in midsummer.

Phil sighs, and cups her cheek in one hand, one of the last familiarities of a former lover. "I know you can't tell me where you're going now, but don't let it harden you. You've always been one of the kindest people I know."

They're all pissed at Fury when Phil turns out to be alive, but only for the whole lying thing. It hardly has room to register next to the sheer joy. Even Steve and Bruce, who don't know him that well, are thrilled to get another chance at it. Visits are short in the beginning, of course. They're careful not to tire him out, and not to bring him real food until he can actually handle it, and they don't run into anyone else for a long time. The cellist does write to him, but they hadn't been particularly serious and she's busy now. Phil is all fucked up on painkillers and would bear her no ill-will even if he wasn't.

Tony is doodling something that might make cloud-seeding easier when Phil suddenly flings out his arms, beaming. "Roro!"

Tony jumps a bit, then looks up to see a vision of loveliness standing tall and elegant in the doorway. She's a perfect example of a cougar, the laugh lines around her eyes only adding to her beauty. Her hair is actually true white, glowing against dark brown skin and kept in myriad tiny braids with delicate silver beads. She beams at Phil, going over to him and taking his hands to kiss the back of each one.

"I had hoped I would find you more lucid, dear one."

"Nope. Drunk again." He giggles, and she kisses his forehead before wiping away happy tears and turning to Tony.

"Anthony Stark?"

"Wow, no one calls me Anthony." He grins, and gets up to shake her hand. "You're Storm, aren't you?"

She laughs. "No one calls me that out of the field."

"Her name's Ororo and it's fun to say!" Phil volunteers, and she and Tony laugh.

 

2\. "So this is goodbye?"

"Yes, surface-dweller."

Phil's eyes are full of tears, but he knows that Namor's aren't. They're like stones, unchanged behind a glaze of what is surely seawater on Namor's third eyelid. "Go on, then. No sense in drawing things out."

Namor smiles softly. "You always were sensible."

"I try."

He floats backward away from the rock, watching Phil. "Know that we part well, and that if you should need my help you have only to call upon it."

Tony screams when Phil goes over the side, because there's nothing else he can do about it. The poor bastard hasn't even been back with them that long, and he's going to drown like an unwanted kitten in the Antarctic ocean instead of the local river, the weight at his ankles more than heavy enough to take him to the bottom while 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' (and damn if he doesn't hate that name) watch like a bunch of useless pudknockers, everyone restrained, powers neutralized.

And then Phil comes back up. The weight is gone, and he's cuddled up in another man's arms like some kind of pet, a beloved little pursedog. He's shivering, blue around the lips, but grinning from ear to ear. His new friend is sleek and powerful and looks _pissed_ , even the fluttery little wings on his ankles not detracting much from the raw menace. Apparently their captors have dared attempt the murder of one beloved of Namor, and he's not the type to take that lying down.

Once everything is cleaned up and they've headed Phil's hypothermia off at the pass, there's time to actually look the guy over. He stands there in his green-scaled underoos, looking at them as if they're ridiculously overdressed. They look back, and at last Steve holds out a hand.

"I don't know how you know him, but Phil means a lot to us. Thank you."

Namor looks at the hand as if it's covered in shit, but at last gingerly takes it. "...He does to me as well."

 

3\. It's not that dating younger men _never_ works out for Phil, but things do tend to get a bit more... explosive. Jean-Paul is crying his eyes out and screaming curses at him in French and Phil is tired even through the heartbreak. He just lets it wash over him, and helps his lover pack to leave him for a terrorist organization. At least as a SHIELD agent, that last part doesn't shock him like it could. 

Tony's getting used to not being the only polyglot in the house, but his ears still prick up at a conversation in French in the kitchen. They've all been sleeping off their last mission, and because Tony is in the middle of a nefarious scheme to add Phil to his people collection, he's here too. And speaking French to someone in the kitchen.

Switching languages is like switching gears. He lets his brain slide to a central position equidistant from all of them, and then slots it into the right one where it stays until he's damn well ready to switch back.

"--And so he asks if I'm going to molest him! And I tell him, 'no, I like grown men, with hair on their chests!'"

Phil is still laughing when Tony comes in. And goddamn, where does Phil find them? This guy is fucking _beautiful_ , lounging at the kitchen table like an escaped supermodel, his mug of coffee looking like a prop. His hair is true black, and his eyes are so blue they nearly glow.

"Never wished I was hairier until this very moment," Tony says, passing them to pour himself a drink. "Tony Stark, by the way."

The vision smiles. "Jean-Paul Beaubier. And the second part of this policy does have exceptions."

Phil groans. "I think maybe I'll just go back to bed and let the two of you flirt the building down."

"Oh no you don't." He scoots his chair to the side to kiss the top of Phil's head. "I can flirt with an eccentric billionaire any time I go down to Westchester."

 

4\. "This can't go on, Victor."

"And why not? Have I at last repelled you?"

"You and I both know that I don't mind your face. It's the black magic and the plans to take over Latveria."

"...I suppose it was foolish of me to think you would share my vision."

"Petty as I am?"

"No, good as you are. Now leave me, and know that only you have wounded Doom and paid no price."

Working with the Fantastic Four has been all right, entrapment by evil aliens aside. Stuck in this (actually really nifty, and he's gonna need to try and figure out how it works if they get out) immobilization tube is getting damned boring, though, so even though the guy that crashes through the roof is Dr. Doom and not the Hulk, Tony is still happy to see him. He has a few choice words for their captors, finishing on a hearty, "And none shall destroy Richards save Doom!" as usual. He has their captors wadded into some kind of forcefield ball before they can even finish their own grandiose reply, and makes a small, contemptuous noise behind his mask.

Phil sighs, and taps on the definitely-not-glass to get his attention. "Hey, Victor."

"Phil? I hadn't thought your masters would send you on this particular errand."

"Neither did I, they're funny that way." Doom ponders this for a long moment, and then clanks over to the central console and releases everyone, even the loathed Richards. Phil steps out of his own little immobilization tube and stretches, studying the angry pink humanoids all smushed together in the forcefield. "Oh, I see. I'm glad you got it to work after all."

"You're going to try and prevent my destroying Richards, aren't you?"

Phil sighs. "Victor, I really have no other choice." In the end, an extremely temporary truce is called, and Phil stands on tiptoe to press a soft kiss to the iron mask of Dr. fucking Doom. "Thank you, sweetheart," he says too quietly for anyone but Jarvis to pick up, and Tony wonders if his head is going to explode. Back at SHIELD, Phil is quiet, and has Medical screen him for everything from mind-controlling microchips to flesh-eating bacteria. It all comes up clear, and Phil smiles sweet and sad.

 

5\. It's another boiling day in another part of Africa, and Phil is losing another lover. This one is so inevitable that he feels stupid for being sad, because it had to come to this. T'challa loves him still, and is going back to Wakanda regardless. It's so hard to watch him walk away for the last time, to not run after him and grab him and hold him tight, clinging to all that lithe power and breathing in the scent of the shea butter he uses on his hair and skin. But it's impossible for Phil to turn his back. He watches and watches, as T'challa shrinks and then disappears, swallowed by distance and responsibility.

"Well, there's something you don't see every day."

"Snail mail with personal content?"

"That and a wedding invitation from two of your exes."

"Oh Christ, which ones?" Tony comes closer to Phil's little encampment on the couch. "I've been meaning to ask how you do it, anyway. Pheromones? Hypnotism? Phenomenal head?"

"Raw animal magnetism. And the phenomenal head." He passes Tony a gorgeous, heavy card, the kind of thing with actual gold leaf. 

"Okay, so there's Ororo looking like a million bucks, and that's—you fucked T'challa?!"

"A long time ago, yes."

"Maaann, I tried to get T'challa!"

Phil bursts out laughing. "Were you the 'gorgeous but perhaps too forward' American at the African Energy Conference seven years ago?"

"Hell, I knew I should've maybe been more subtle. You usually don’t need it with men."

"Our mutual friend is the archetypal class act, though. He did say something about lovely eyes and being very tempted, if that's any consolation."

Tony has to admit that it's some.

 

+1. "An' that's what makes it impossible." Clint is very drunk, and very miserable. Tony has been seeing him through this dark night because someone should and Natasha is out and drunk guys make Bruce nervous, Thor is sucking face with Jane floors above them, and Steve would have to listen to Clint's moaning sober. So it's up to Tony, though he's starting to lose the thread.

"Wait, what's impossible? It's this guy, right?"

"Yeah, the guy I want who's not mine."

"Shit, I really missed a lot there. Sorry. So what's fucking you up again?"

"His exes!"

"Oh. Psycho?"

"Hot!" Clint thumps his head on the bar, and takes another shot. "An' capable an' amazing and _hot_. I mean, I'm not the Elephant Man, but I got all these scars an' this big ol' nose and I'm like, all perma-squinty an' my ears kinda stick out. These motherfuckers is _perfection_. …Okay, 'cept one. But he's smart enough to make Reed Richards look like a moron, so so much for that. Fuck, two of 'em have their own countries!"

"And all of them are classy as hell," Tony adds, then realizes that this probably isn't helpful.

"Exactly. I'm so fucked."

"Yes, you are." Phil's voice makes them both jump, and Clint whips around with the most pathetic and hunted look Tony has ever seen on his squinty little face. "Well, not now, you're too drunk. But later, definitely."

At their wedding, Clint bribes Tony not to tell any future children the real story of how their parents got together.


End file.
